Obama: "Good morning everybody. Lately we've been talking about the fundamental choice that we face as a country."

Obama introduces the crowd behind him -- millionaires. "They want to make sure that the next generation, people coming up behind them ... have the same opportunities."

More: "They haven't been asked to do their fair share."

More: "These same folks are paying taxes at one of the lowest rates in 50 years. In fact, one in four millionaires pays a lower tax rate than millions of middle class households."

More: "The executives who are here with me today agree with ... Warren. This should be fixed." Obama says they have brought some of their own assistants.

More: "It's not that these folks are excited about paying more in taxes ... nobody loves paying taxes ... in a perfect world, none of us would have to pay any taxes."

Obama says in a perfect world, things would just pay for themselves by magic.

Says the private sector benefits from infrastructure, education, etc.

More: "Right now, we have significant needs ... That means we can't afford to keep spending more money on tax cuts for wealthy Americans who don't need them and didn't ask for them."

More: "This is not simply an issue of redistributing wealth. That's what you'll hear from those who object to a tax plan that is fair. This is not just about fairness, this is also about growth ... it's about we as a country being willing to pay for those investments."

More: "If you make more than 1 million dollars a year, you should pay at least the same percentage of your income as middle class families."

More: "Most Americans agree with me. So do most millionaires. One survey found that nearly 2/3rds of millionaires agree with this idea." Also, more than half of all Republicans. Says that GOP in Washington needs to get on board to where the country is.

More: "I've cut taxes for middle class families each year that I've been in office. ... For most of the folks in this room, taxes are lower than they've been or as low as they've been in 50 years."

Obama says some say it's just a gimmick. Notes that it won't close the deficit. "The notion that it doesn't solve the entire problem doesn't mean we shouldn't do it at all."

More: "The Buffett rule is something that will get us moving in the right direction."

Obama says that if millionaires keep getting tax breaks, then either more borrowing or less investments.

Obama: "That's not right. The middle class has seen enough of its security erode over the last few decade."

More: "We're not going to stop building first class schools and making sure that they've got science labs in them. We're not going to fail to make investments in basic science and research."

More: "In America, prosperity has never just trickled down from a wealthy few. Prosperity has always been built from the bottom up, from the heart of the middle class ... outward."

More: "I"m not the first president to call for this idea ..." Cites one of his predecessors who got a letter. "This president gave another speech where it was crazy to quote, that certain tax loopholes" make it possible for a millionaire to pay less than a bus driver.